The University of Pennsylvania is initiating a search to identify a new Executive Director of the Leonard Davis Institute. I have been asked by Provost Vince Price to chair the search committee, which will include three additional members of the LDI Governing Board: Steve Fluharty, Senior Vice Provost for Research; Afaf Meleis, Mary Bond Simon Dean of Nursing; and Tom Robertson, Reliance Professor of Private Enterprise and Dean of the Wharton School.

Dr. David Asch will be stepping down after a highly successful 14-year tenure as Executive Director. Under his leadership, which has spanned nearly a third of the Leonard Davis Institute’s 45-year history, the LDI has expanded to a membership of over 200 Senior Fellows, who collectively hold over $126 million in grant funding. The LDI Senior Fellows are widely recognized for their leading work to improve the health of the public through studies on the medical, economic, and social issues that influence how health care is organized, financed, managed, and delivered. The LDI serves as the University’s primary locus for research, policy analysis, and education in health systems, and is a model for how institutes can successfully promote the integration of knowledge across typically disparate disciplines. Accordingly, the search for a new Executive Director is extraordinarily important, and whoever is selected will be the beneficiary of a record of outstanding accomplishments.

Throughout its existence, and especially during Dr. Asch’s tenure, the LDI has developed and nurtured a broad, dynamic and engaging community of scholars at Penn. Therefore, the search committee will conduct an internal search for the next Executive Director and seek nominations of candidates on the Penn faculty who have nationally and internationally established reputations and distinguished records of academic achievement in the broad domains of health economics and/or health services research. Candidates must be able to lead in a complex environment and have the ability to build on the established strengths of the Leonard Davis Institute. We encourage you to submit the names of those individuals who you wish to recommend for this position to the committee by July 25, 2012.

The search committee also invites you to communicate your insights into any issues that we should consider in our effort to ensure outstanding leadership of the Leonard Davis Institute. You may convey your candidate recommendations and/or comments by email, telephone, or in person to Thomas Hecker, trhecker@mail.med.upenn.eduor (215) 898-2443, or to a member of the search committee.

Thank you for your assistance. We look forward to your active and thoughtful participation in this important endeavor.

—Larry Jameson, EVP for the Health System, Dean, Perelman School of Medicine